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While not the largest state by landmass, with nearly 40 million residents, California is the most populous state in the United States. In 2013, California’s share of total US agricultural exports reached 14.7% where, in total, California farmers raked in a whopping $46.9 billion worth of sales of milk, almonds, grapes, cattle, strawberries, walnuts, lettuce, hay, tomatoes, nursery plants, and roughly 400 other commodities. If you ride along Interstate 5 through the Central Valley, you will inevitably see a wide, man-made channel of water flowing from North to South. There’s a lot of water flowing down that channel, and to look at it, and the hundreds of miles of crops along the way, you might get the impression that life is grand. It’s not.
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California has been stuck in a drought for the last three years. NASA recently released a study showing that since 2011, “the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have decreased in volume by four trillion gallons of water each year with about two-thirds of the loss due to depletion of groundwater beneath California’s Central Valley.” According to the study, “That’s more water than California’s 38 million residents use each year for domestic and municipal purposes.”
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What’s worse is when officials from California’s Department of Water Resources went up to the Phillips snow course to take their annual reading of the Sierra Nevada Mountain snowpack, there was no snow to be measured. Based on electronic readings throughout the mountains’ peaks, the department estimated this year’s snowpack to be just 5% of the historical average. That’s the lowest measurement on record. The previous low was last year’s 25% of average. Keep in mind that 1/3 of the states water comes from the slowly melting snowpack during those months when California sees little to no rain (May-October).
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Unless you happen to meander into one of the smaller central valley towns that now need all their water trucked in to them, you’d barely notice a soul ranting about brown lawns or sky high produce prices. Walk through California’s larger metropolitan areas and you probably wouldn’t notice a lick of difference. Granted Governor Jerry Brown has rolled out mandatory restrictions, but one has to wonder whether or not it’s too little, too late, or how the greater populous including the agricultural community will react overtime. Walking down a residential street you might see automatic sprinklers running full bore and wonder how one could possibly stay afloat in a sea of fools.
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Filed under: Photo Challenges Tagged: 2812 photography, Black and White, California Drought, FujiFilm X-T1, Pete Rosos, photography, postaday, Stay Afloat, The Daily Post, Water Shortage, Weekly Photo Challenge, Wordpress Image may be NSFW.
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